How to build a school in three hours

How to build a school in 3 hours Now, before I start telling you about how to build a school in three hours, I wanna tell you a bit of the backstory and some of the research that went into it first. I wanna tell you a bit of the backstory and some of the research that went into it first. So the backstory started in 2003, when I started giving 10% of my income away to charity, which at the time didn´t amount to much cause I was living in a rented basement suite, driving a truck with no reverse and recycling the same three t-shirts every three days, you don't even wanna hear about my boxer situation. But luckly that changed, and it changed mostly in 2005 when I got into real estate. I´m not sure if you remember but the real estate maket wasn't always like this, it used to be really really good and that's when I got in the business when it was doing that. And I rode the code tales of that market really hard and in 2008 I was so busy I had my biggest year ever in real estate that I didn't have time to choose where to give that 10% of the money so it kind of accumulated in the account and then in November I looked at it and realized there was a lot of cash in there and thought "Wow, this could really make a big difference but all I know is real estate and no idea where to give it". So i sought out the most knowledgeable person on charity in the city his name is Zack White who's sitting right there - he's really tall - and I said Zack look I've got this money saved up and no idea where to give it, all I know is Condos, where will it make the biggest impact? And he told me about three different charities going on or projects going on in Africa. One of which he was raising money for at the time called "For the Children", within 45 minutes we created a beautiful bromance and I looked at him and said: "Zack this all sounds fantastic, let´s go and check it out" and he said: "What do you mean check it out? We just met". And I said: "Let´s go there". I said: "Between the money that you've raised and the money that I'm gonna give we've got a lot of cash, this could make a big difference. Let´s go to Africa and see for ourselves" And he looked at me like I was nuts and he looked at me like he was looking right into my soul and he said: "Taylor, we're gonna change lives, I mean a 100%, I just got to check with my wife first" Luckly shes said yes and four months later Zack and I went and landed in Uganda. We travelled for two days outside the capital city of Uganda to the border of the Congo at the top of the Renzori mountain range where we saw this. And it was beautiful I was so separated that I remember saying: "Zack this is so cool, we are so badass we are in Uganda. I was like I know there's stuff going on on the Congo right now, I don't know what, I've heard bad things of it, like this is dangerous, this is really cool" And I looked at him and said: "Zack this is so beautiful, there's so many kids everywhere. Zack why are there so many kids?" And he turned to me and looked (he's 6.7") he looked down on me and said: "Taylor, 50% of the village has Aids, their parents are dead" And at that moment the trip turned from being an adventure, really fun to being the most transformational experience of my life, cause it was the first time that I saw the world instead of just my world. And then we went to Kenya, where we met kids that would have to walk 11 kilometers each way every day to collect dirty water that their families would use to cook with, clean with, bathe in and drink. And then we saw the schools they were learning in, and they're made of mud, dung and sticks, with tiny little rickety desks and there's no over headlights, no electricity, small windows, dirt floors. And just keeping kids coming to learn in this environment, little alone keeping teachers coming to teach was a massive challenge. But then we saw the schools that For the Children was building, and they're beautiful, there's skylights and huge windows and the kids were smiling they were so happy to be there and learn, and the teachers we happy to be there and come and teach. Two weeks after I got back to Canada from that life changing trip I got an email from For the Children saying that the money that Zack had raised was going to build a beautiful school just like that in Kenya, and that the money that I had donated was gonna build the first library in that region of Kenya and help educate thousands and thousands of kids. And that feeling, that feeling of contribution, that feeling of changing the world for the better was something I can't put into words, and it's something I became addicted to immediately. It's something I wanted to get all my friends involved and all my family, I wanted everyone to feel this feeling. I became that...you know, you know when you read a book, like a really good life changing book or you watch a documentary and something like clicks in your head and you go "Oh!, if everyone just read this book or just watched this documentary the world would be a better place and everyone would be so much happier", that's who I became. And you know you go all around telling your friends to read it and maybe one does. That's who I became after I came back from Africa, I was like running around I was like "you guys have to give it's unbelievable, it feels incredible, you don't need the new truck, you don't need the house, you don't need anything, give everything away, it feels so amazing. Hop on the giving train, it's a sweet ride". I remember looking back and being ... and no one, no one was getting on. And it was at that moment that I realized that that model of fundraising where we have a cause like Aids in Uganda and there's the bad schools in Kenya, and we go around kinda shoving it down on many people throats as possible, hoping they'll cough up cash is not only exhausting but it was really pissing my friends off. So at that moment I decided I wanted to get my friends to give on their terms and I wanted other people to give on their terms I wanted them to feel the feeling that I had when I found out that I'd built a library, I wanted them to feel that out of pleasure and joy, not out of guilt or duty. So I started to experiment to find out what it was that truly make people give on their terms, and the first experiment I did was called "A thousand dollars into five thousand dollars contest". And then that i put on my blog and on my facebook that I would give a free trip to anywhere in North or Central America to the best idea to turn US$1.000 into US$5.000 for charity. And I got dozens of ideas from four different countries, the most memorable and tempting of which came from a young woman in the United States who suggested I get 50 of my male friends together and we all go donate sperm. Collecting the houndred dollars that you get per donation, she argued it was a brilliant idea because it's an activity that most of the guys would probably be doing for free that day anyways so it should probably be going to go benefit a good cause. She didn't win. The person who did win was a young inspironing runner named Megan Nicole from Vancouver, well Megan she took up US$1.000 and she built a website called themarathonofgiving.com and she got a bunch of her friends to commit to running the Vancouver marathon with her and then feature them on the site and got other people to pledge on those runners in a micro-giving self fashion that i'll talk about in about 5 minutes. The next experiment I did was called "A houndred dollar give away" and I'm not ... I gave 25 of my friends 100 dollars each and said: "All you have to do with this money is add at least 20 dollars of you own money, you can add as much as you want but at least 20 dollars of your own money and give it away to charity, then send me a video of you that says who you gave it to, why you gave it to them and how it made you feel. Some people gave 20, some people gave 40, a friend of mine from Colonia, Joel gave 400, and Zack the guy I went to Africa with, Zack went on facebook and wrote a post saying: "My friend just gave me 100 dollars to put towards this cool cause I'm putting in 20 dollars, I'd love for my friends to get involved too" And overnight Zack raised 800 dollars from one facebook post, and that taught me an incredible amount about what people really get involved in. And the next experiment I did is my favorite by far and it´s hilarious it's called "The Early Entrepreneurs Experiment" and in this I partened with a young teacher from an elementary school here in Victoria, named Christina and Christina and I went around in her school with a houndred dollars each to 18 classes with the challenge of them turning that houndred dollars into five houndred dollars for charity, and we said if they did it 18 times 5 is 9.000 which is just enough to build a big beautiful school in Kenya for kids just like them on the other side of the world. And I have just enough time to tell you a quick story about one of the classes I went into. I was walking around giving these houndred dollar bills away it was hilarious and the kids ... I walked into a class, a grade two class so picture seven year olds all cross-legged on the floor and they gave me this stupid little chair to sit in, and I sat in it. And I said: "Ok you guys, what are your ideas? How are you gonna turn these 100 dollars into 500 for charity? It´s gonna be amazing!" And the teacher said: "Well, we're already prepared for you", and they had this flip chart, she flips up from this flip chart and it's got the regular basic ideas: bake sales, lemonade stand, candy counting contest, pizza night and right near the bottom it says Dylan's Plays and Stories and I went: "Who's Dillan?" and this kid at the back - I'll show you this -, this kid at the back sitting totally non-chilont separated from the rest of the group goes... And I said: "Dylan, what are your plays and stories buddy?" and he goes, gets up, all the kids look up at him like "yes!, Dylan's gonna talk" and he starts passing and says: "Well, I've written a couple of books - this guy's 7 - I've written a couple of books and plays that are pretty successful and I've written a play for all the kids to perform - and the kids are going "yeah!" - for all the kids to perform, we're gonna charge 50 dollars a head and we'll probably get it done in a night" Like this, and that and dozens of other stories like it taught me more about people's true motivations behind giving because I learned more about this group of wide open minded creative children that I ever could from a socially conditioned group of adults. After doing these three experiments I came up with a formula of 5 motivators behind giving that I believe when combined correctly will not only motivate anyone to give but will make them happy, excited and thank you for getting them to give in the first place. Those 5 motivators are number 1: Group Mentality. We love to be a part of a group wether it's teammates or co-workers or family or friends, people are far more apt to give when they know they're part of a group cause of that kinda pier pressure mentality. Number 2: Tangible Outcome. Wether it's buying a goat or digging a well or building a school, people love to see a visual representation for their giving. This amount of money went to this, and I changed the world with this, it feels really good. So it's a huge motivator behind giving. Number 3: Micro-giving. This is what I was talking about in that marathon of giving contest, cause Megan when she asked people to pledge she didn't ask people to pledge 3 or 4 houndred dollars at a time. She asked people to do what she called "Give a Marathon", and what that means is that she asked people to give 4 dollars and 20 cents a day, the price of an expensive latte for 42 days because there's 42 kilometers in a marathon, 42 days. And she said that was the secret behind her success, she said that people could relate to $4.20 a day far better that they could ever relate to a big chunk of 3 o 4 houndred dollars. Number 4: Personal Connection. This is best reflected in Zack's facebook post and that if you read the comments below his facebook post everyone who donated commented saying "I'm giving 5 bucks, I'm giving 20 bucks" whatever, nothing mentions the cause. All it says is thank you for getting us involved in this Zack, you're the best Zack, we'll get involved in anything you do Zack, Zack Zack Zack ... nothing about the cause, which, which on a serious note is what I think is not wrong but has evolved in the traditional model of fundraising in that we are caused out has humans, you what I mean, there's an application called facebook causes, the thing that makes it work is saying that your cause is worse than the next cause and then worse than the next cause and showing like photoshopped pictured of kids with you know what I mean to really make you feel bad which I don't really like and I realized that us as a society were numb to this cause we have been inundated by it for decades. So I realized that the relationship between the potencial donor and the fundraising itself is far more important than the cause. And number 5 is: Recognition. This is very evident to The Early Entrepreneurs Experiment cause kids are very honest with what motivates them. They love recognition, I think us as adults love recognition as well but we've been conditioned to say that we don't and I love recognition in giving for 2 big reasons. Number 1: It correlates a really good emotion to the act of giving making people far more apt to give more and continue this in the future. And number 2: Recognizing people for giving inspires other people to give and recognizing them inspires other people to give, etc., etc. So those 5 again are: Number 1: Group Mentality Number 2: Tangible Outcome Number 3: Micro Giving 4: Personal Connection 5: Recognition So after I had this group of 5, this formula of 5 motivators I had to test it, so I created the most thought out cassual sounding text message ever written and I wrote it to 15 of my friends, and it said: "You, me, and a bunch of our friends are going to get together to build a school in Kenya for hundreds of deserving kids. We are all giving $3.33 a day for 3 quick months (I know you spend more than that on hair product every month). There is a site being made with your picture on it - your mom is going to be so proud of you!" And if you look at that a bit closer it has all 5 of those motivators in it "You and me" - Personal Connection "and a bunch of our friends" - Group Mentality "are going to get together to build a school in Kenya" - Tangible Outcome "for hundreds of deserving kids. We are all giving $3.33 a day" - Micro Giving "for 3 quick months (I know you spend more than that on hair product every month) - that´s just a fact with my friends - "There is a site being made with your picture on it and your mom is going to be so proud". After sending this to 15 of my friends these are the results, or the replies that I got. "Yes!" "I'm in" "done" "how do we pay?" And my personal favorite from my friend Pete I guess I'll look like a dick if I don't do it, so count me in" Worked. After this, this was 15 people $3.33 a day for 3 months I realized that I just raised $5.000 dollars from a text message. A little bit more would be enough to build one of those beautiful schools in Kenya for hundreds of deserving kids from a 67 word text. My head was exploding with how easy this was and I knew that it was just a huge step forward toward my goal of getting my friends involved on their terms and wanting to get involved. So I partened up with a friend of mine who's a brilliant graphic designer, named is Steven Zuzula and we made a video, an animated video, I don't have time to show it all to you but the video said how it was $3.33 a day, how it was building a school how it was a whole bunch, a group of us doing it and that we would give them certificates for doing it, for that recognition factor. And not only did we say that they would be featured on our website but we said that we would give them email signatures and web badges. So, kind of spread the news and show people that they were giving getting more recognition, and we coded the email signatures and web badges in a way that, for example if John Marlon who is organizing this TEDx event, who was in my campaing and I had sent it to him and he got the email signature If someone clicked on John's email signature it would move his picture to the top of the site giving him all the recognition. So I basically took the recognition and put it on steroids. The only thing that was missing from this was the real personal connection. So, before sending any of my friends the videos I filmed 33, 10 second clips of me individually to each friend that I was gonna send it to saying for example: "John, you're amazing. How did you get all these good looking people here in TEDx. We're gonna change the world tonight, this is how it's gonna work" That would lead into the 4 minute video and then we put those, the combination of those videos right at the top of a donation page. So people would watch the video it's all encrypted, it's a secure site and they didn't have to click anything they'd be inspired from the video, they'd just scroll down a little bit, enter their information so within 1 minute of watching the video they could click "Let´s build a school" and they'd be done. I sent it out to 33 friends and acquaintances and with what took me 3 hours to do to narrate over the animated video to film my short videos I'd raised $10.000 dollars to build a school in Kenya. Thanks. So I knew at this point there's gonna be some people saying "Well that's just cause maybe Taylor's got a bunch of his friends that owe him favors" or something like that so I needed a ginny pig. And I wanted someone technically challenged so that anyone that would look at them and say "Well, they can do it, I can do it" I wanted someone technically challenged that they didn't even know how to text. So I called my mom. Sorry mom, she's right here. I didn't have any other pictures of her on facebook, sorry. And my mom, in the time that it would take to watch the season finale of Survivor, raised enough money to build a school in Nepal for hundreds and hundreds of girls. And then my dad did it, probably cause my mom told him to and now my girlfriend's doing it she's raising enough money to build a school in India. But the cool thing about this is that it doesn't have to be people close to me anyone can do this. We've made a website that anybody can build a school in 3 hours in 5 simple steps. Step 1: You enter the friends that you want to have take part. Step 2: You pick the country in the world that you want to build your school in it's already set up, dozens and dozens of countries. Step 3: You narrate over the animated video, we give a script and all that, it's really easy. Step 4: You film those little personal videos to establish that really good connection with each friend that you're sending it to. And number 5: You sit back and watch your friends ilation and $10.000 dollars come in to build a school anywhere in the world that you want. Now all of this can be summed up in a really brilliant quote by Margaret Mead that says: "Never doubt that a group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, is the only thing that ever has". Thank you. Before you step off, at the end of that presentation, what's the name of the website that you talked about but you didn't give an email address ... a web address for? It's teninthree.com, so which stands for $10.000 dollars in 3 hours so it's t - e - n - i - n - t - h - r - e - e.com, teninthree.com. Thank you very much Taylor. Thank you.